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Whitney Brown Brown 1

Hell to Home

I sat on the top pillar of the play-scape solemn and confused. One of the only friends that

I had made at my new, white, public elementary school was no longer allowed to play with me

due to her mother’s complaints to the after-school care program coordinator that my first-grade

dialect was too “hood” and it was rubbing off on her daughter. Ashley picked up some of the

synonyms and abbreviation embedded in my dialect and had begun to use them as her own. Her

white mother did not like the influence I had on her daughter. I wouldn’t say that was my first

glimpse of what a different world I was now in, but it was the first time the world had made me

feel inferior.

The complexities of white vs. black, rich vs. poor, and proper English vs. “hood” or

“ghetto” accents were all being thrown at me. From the age of 1 to 6, I was reared in a Baptist

Church formal schooling system. I wore uniforms. I went to bible study Wednesday nights, I

attended a church service during the school day Thursdays, and early Sunday morning I made

my way to the choir pews with little to no rebuttal because as a village, my mother, nor

grandmother, nor aunties, nor teacher expected anything less. Sometimes I would have to be

reminded of the repercussions, but not often. Lockhart, Texas held a population of about 10,000

people. My Na-na was known for taking in children that didn’t have a place to rest their head at

night. We are a communal family. We went out to the country for church, funerals, and to ride

horses. I didn’t know that this was not everyone’s truth until I was made an outcast by my peers.

An hour drive from home to hell was a difference in school districts and opportunity. In my

young eyes, it was the difference in nice people and mean people, the difference in people who

understood me and those who did not, and finally the difference in mannerisms and dialect. In
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her short story, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, she reflects on the cultural imperialism, racism,

and identity reformation she endured in south Texas. It called me to see my prior linguistic

practices as the means of this “crucified” Anzaldua speaks of. My personal experiences closely

correlated with the words Gloria Anzaldua wrote, “because we speak with tongues of fire we are

culturally, crucified. Racially, culturally, and linguistically, somos huérfanos – we speak an

orphan tongue.” My environment, my family, and the origin of my religion all played vital roles

in how others heard me. The perception of who I am is heard through how I speak and it did not

fall directly in the realms of the metropolitan, white-washed, public elementary school that is

now tasked with educating me.

The idea that a “wild tongue can’t be tamed, they can only be cut out” isn’t unfamiliar to

most public school teachers where I am from. On different sides of town it was evident that there

are greater benefits from students learning from teachers who looked like them or had experience

with students from colored neighborhoods. This notion was not upheld on this unfamiliar side of

town. There was no attempt to incorporate my original dialect into my new knowledge of the

English language. The heritage and experience that my accent showed was lost when I was

forced to separate all of my words and loose the twangy slur my grandma taught me. This “God-

teacher” that Caffilene Allen introduces to us in her short story, “First They Changed My

Name…”, further sheds light on the stigma that a lot of parents, which in-turn influences their

children, believe that teachers are all knowing. Teachers have taken on the role of recreating

students, especially if they catch them in their adolescence. Educators who do not share the same

dialect with students must question their intent. There must be a clear goal of what will be

accomplished in the best interest of the child. Who is to say that my dialect as a child did not
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help the depth of my thoughts? What I chose to write and how I chose to express myself was

hindered by the pressure to conform to the unfamiliar “standard English” that was naturally used

by my white classmates. This “right way” theory Allen builds upon affected the way that I

viewed my speech in such that I began to alter the way I sounded to mirror how the teachers and

students spoke. This change was evident in my writing, speech, and the teacher’s evaluation of

my work. My voice in my writing grew to become “better”, though it was all fake. My thoughts

were genuine, but I was not perceived as myself. A divide between home and hell was due to

distance and the difference in identity. Educators found themselves teaching me what society has

deemed the best choice of dialect and correctness. I was not myself in my learning environment.

The people teaching me no longer looked like me, the people I was learning with no longer

looked like me, and I wasn’t learning about people who looked like me.

A confusing turn in identity was happening and it became difficult to distinguish my two

selves. My cousins from back home started calling me things like “oreo” and “Miss Thang”. The

English I spoke was not the English they were used to hearing from me. We grew together from

birth, they knew where I was from and who raised me, but the way I sounded was the means to

the end of our familial alliance. Just as Heinz Paige wrote in his book, The Dreams of Reason:

The Computer and the Rise of the Science of Complexity, we as a black community are called to

“come to grasp the management of complexity, the rich structures of symbols, and perhaps

consciousness itself, it is clear that traditional barriers –barriers erected on both sides –between

the natural sciences the humanities cannot forever be maintained.” In other words we need to

find a common awareness of the symbols and works around us so that they do not divide us.
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Actions that could be viewed as conformity when it comes to learning “standard English” are for

most students mere effects of their new found knowledge. I have not magically acquired white

ancestry. I am no less black. The correlation between the English that is taught in school and the

dialect that I am used to at home is strong. “Proper English” is seen as white. Any other southern

slang or black dialect is seen as inferior and unintelligent. This makes it a hardship within the

education system to speak in any other dialect but the one that is deemed proper. Instead of

adding value and depth into the way I think as a student, the focus is turned to how I use

language and correcting the patterns in which I do so. There is definitely a piece of me that was

compromised. Measuring the amount of time that I spent in the formal education setting, without

any resemblance of the black culture that I come from portrays my discomfort to the point I did

not feel at home. The pressure to conform outweighs the influence of my family and community

had on me. This did open the door for me to intentionally pursue the creation of a identity. I had

to choose a voice that both my family and future employers could understand.

For the most part, a public school education that never provided me the opportunity to be

taught by a black teacher ultimately led me to pursue higher education at a historically black

university. I do feel robbed of my culture looking back on my public school years. Howard

Alumnus, Kenneth B. Clark, said it best in his book, Dark Ghetto, “dark ghetto’s invisible walls

have been erected by the white society, by those who have power, both to confine those have no

power and to perpetuate their powerlessness. The dark ghettos are social, political, educational,

and –above all– economic colonies” (13). I am a product of an oppressed people that is why I

search for so much individuality in my English because I flee from any conforming practices.

There is life within the struggle my people have been through and I owe it to them to profess
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pieces of my culture that are shown in me. There is so much that can be learned from black

culture and the black community. It is a misfortune, but also a blessing that the entirety of my

rearing was not immersed in it all. My personal experience has taught me that everyone who

lives in America should not be forced to learn “standard English”. As a black student I took away

from culture and individuality. The imposition of white ideals and ways of though isn’t

something that is bigger than how we teach our children. It is a pattern that can be seen

throughout our nation’s political system, mass media sources, and the influence of many aspects

we all fall victim to everyday.


Works Cited

Allen, Caffilene. First They Changed My Name…. Prisms, 1994

Anzaldua, Gloria. Borderlands: the New Mestiza = La Frontera. Aunt Lute Books, 2012.

Clark, Kenneth Bancroft. Dark Ghetto: Dilemmas of Social Power. Wesleyan University Press,

1989

“Forum N.H.I.: Knowledge for the 21st Century Archives.” Education, Liberation & Black

Radical Traditions, 1994, carmenkynard.org/tag/forum-n-h-i-knowledge-for-the-21st-

century/.

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